Avoid carpet-bombing your press releases. That is, sending the same release to everyone in a newsroom. It just creates problems.

First, it makes you look cheap. If you don’t know who to send information to, sending it to everyone is not a good alternative. Do your homework.

And of course, reporters know when a release is carpet-bombed. We carpet-bomb our newsrooms ourselves when we get information that we want someone else to grab but that’s not important to assign to a particular person immediately. But when everyone gets the same release, you end up with multiple internal carpet-bombings. Any impression that the information is precious and worth jumping on is wiped out.

2 responses to “Tip #162: I love the smell of press releases in the morning”

Just stumbled upon your blog. Thought it was going to be dry and all-business, but it’s also fun! I remember my early days in PR when I actually thought “carpet-bombing” was the thing to do. Experience — and being ignored by the press — is a great teacher, huh?